'Pak's integral part split from it because of Cong'

On the last day of election campaign for Maharashtra and Haryana, which the BJP has centred around the issue of nationalism, the Congress on Saturday reminded Prime Minister Narendra Modi that Pakistan was split and Bangladesh was created during former prime minister Indira Gandhi’s regime.

"Modi ji only remembers (Article) 370. He does not know when Pakistan split and who did it. It was we (Congress) who split Pakistan's integral part from it. Where were you (Modi) then? Tell the people of Haryana that it was because of the Congress that Pakistan's integral part was split from it. This happened under the Congress rule. Praise the Congress, but you don't have the guts to do that,” senior Congress leader Kapil Sibal said.

The Congress leader’s remarks came on a day when Modi attacked the Congress for having failed to abrogate Article 370 despite promising it in Parliament in 1964 and BJP chief and Home Minister Amit Shah dared it to bring back the measure in Jammu and Kashmir again.

The bitter election campaign for the two states that came to an end on Saturday saw US President Donald Trump, Pakistan and most recently Bangladesh frequently being mentioned by leaders in their speeches.

While the BJP has attempted to keep the election campaign focused on issues like NRC, Kashmir, dynastic politics and corruption by Congress leaders, the Congress has been attempting hard to reorient the narrative towards issues of development, joblessness and flagging the condition of economy.

Seeking to highlight “real issues versus propaganda", Sibal trained guns on the BJP saying its leaders fail to see the reality of Maharashtra or Haryana and only end up looking at “left leaning” of some or Article 370.

Mocking the government over its handling of the recent Punjab and Maharashtra Bank Cooperative crisis— the number of deaths of depositors rose to 5 on Saturday— Sibal demanded a PMC (Prime Minister’s Commitment) that the money deposited by people will be given back to them.

Placing statistics of international agencies including IMF, World Bank, , Asian Development Bank, Moody’s Investors, Fitch, Organisation of Cooperation and Development, Union Conference on Trade and Development, Sibal projected a bleak picture of the economy and asked whether the views expressed by these agencies are “left leaning”.

The Congress leader also targeted the government on issues like malnutrition and migration and cited the case of Indians having been deported from Mexico to hammer home the point of rampant unemployment.